“Thanks for your input on this issue. Regardless of whether God exists or not the issue of free will etc still stands. As far as the orthodox Sunni Muslim position is concerned though, I found the following question and answer on this website:-
http://qa.sunnipath.com/issue_view.asp?HD=1&ID=131&CATE=24Here is the text, which includes the question asked and the supporting text from Islamic sources.
“Question:
If Allah wills everything, then can we say that Allah willed me to do x and y sins, and Allah is responsible for my not repenting, and Allah willed that I am a bad Muslim?
Answer:
Walaikum assalam
Yes, we can say that Allah Willed me to do x, y, and also z. Nothing moves or is brought to rest, except by the Power of Allah, in accordance with that which His Will specified and what He knew with His Knowledge.
Realizing this is key to the perfection of ones faith.
This is why the Prophet (Allah bless him & give him peace) asked one of the Companions, Shall I not guide you to words that are a treasure from the treasures of Paradise? He said, Indeed, O Messenger of Allah!
The Prophet (Allah bless him & give him peace) said, There is no ability or power except through Allah (la hawla wa la quwwata illa billah). [Bukhari (3883); Muslim (4873), and others]
Allah tells us this clearly in the Quran:
Allah hath created you and what you do. [Quran, 37.96]
And:
Lo! this is an Admonishment, that whosoever will may choose a way unto his Lord. Yet you will not, unless Allah wills. Lo! Allah is Knower, Wise. He makes whom He will to enter His mercy, and for evil-doers hath prepared a painful doom. [Quran, 76.29-31]
Moral Responsibility
However, it is at the same time true that Allah has made us morally responsible for our acts and it is we who shall be questioned about the choices we made.
Allah tells us that,
We shall question, every one, of what they used to do. [Quran, 15.92-93]
And:
He will not be questioned as to that which He does, but they will be questioned. [Quran, 21.23]
Great Islamic theologians said: Allah has willed that you act based on choice.
As for how this works, it is beyond the understanding of the intellect. Shaykh Butis explanation of this, ably translated by Sidi Gibril Haddad, is attached
It is important to understand, too, that Allah is as unconditioned by time as He is unconditioned by space: both are His creation, and He is beyond both. As such, Allahs Knowledge, Will, and Power relate to things beyond time. He knows the result from before the match ever happened.
As such, Allahs Knowledge relates to all things necessary, possible, and impossible from pre-eternality. Allahs Will specified some of that which is possible with particulars in pre-eternality, in accordance with His Knowledge. His Power brings things into temporal existence, in accordance to that which His Will specified
The way to understand this is to enlighten ones heart, mind, and soul with remembrance of Allah and recital of His Book with contemplation. Allah tells us,
Is not the time ripe for the hearts of those who believe to submit to Allahs reminder and to the truth which is revealed, that they become not as those who received the scripture of old but the term was prolonged for them and so their hearts were hardened, and many of them are evil-livers. Know that Allah quickens the earth after its death. We have made clear Our revelations for you, that haply you may understand. Lo! those who give alms, both men and women, and lend unto Allah a goodly loan, it will be doubled for them, and theirs will be a rich reward.
And those who believe in Allah and His messengers, they are the loyal, and the martyrs are with their Lord; they have their reward and their light; while as for those who disbelieve and deny Our revelations, they are owners of hell-fire. [Quran, 57.16-19]
And Allah alone gives success.
Wassalam,”
The above is the basic understanding in a nutshell. As far as I can tell, it sounds like a compatibilist position, although I could be wrong?
Many Thanks ”
To which he responded with:-
“Yes, they are describing a compatibilist position. It’s thus comparable to (or at least what used to be) the Christian Calvinist position, although it amusingly sounds closer to Game Theory (which is to Islam’s credit, actually). For a good analysis of a Game Theoretic argument for the same conclusion (albeit sans god), see Drescher’s _Good and Real_, the second half of which is a secular treatment of the foreknowledge vs. free will problem (centered around Newcomb’s Problem). In short, you should will to do good in order to reassure yourself that you are good and deserve what that entails, because if you choose evil you will thus be affirming that you are evil and thus deserve everything that entails; in effect, this knowledge (that your actions reveal what you were determined to suffer) deterministically causes you to be good (i.e. once you understand the argument, that understanding causes you to refrain from evil). So in fact, it’s one of the best arguments for being moral–that we should be moral precisely *because* we don’t have free will (of the libertarian type).
The problem it creates for theology is simply the problem of evil–i.e. if there is anything God could tell you that would cause you to refrain from evil, he is responsible for the evil you do if he doesn’t tell you (since that is a sin of omission: he willed the evil you did by choosing to allow it and by having similarly chosen all the things that caused you to do it), whereas if there is nothing (even in principle) that God could tell you that would cause you to refrain from evil, he is responsible for having made you in such a defective way and thus is still responsible for the evil you do; and therefore God wills all evil; and therefore God is evil. That the agent is *also* responsible (i.e. they are evil and deserve what that entails) makes no difference to this conclusion: both the agent and the God who made him are evil. Thus the cognitive dissonance doesn’t arise from any conflict between God willing all things and people still being responsible; the cognitive dissonance arises from the fact that you must acknowledge that God is evil, which should entail that it is immoral to worship him.”
Topic: Discussion on freewill with friends.